Who among the following wrote The Social Contract?

Concept

Political philosophy studies how legitimate authority is created and what makes political rule binding. In social-contract theory, thinkers explain civil society by an agreement—actual or hypothetical—among individuals.

Authors can be distinguished by their characteristic works and doctrines: Hobbes stresses sovereign security, Locke natural rights and limited government, and Rousseau popular sovereignty and the general will.

Application

The title The Social Contract is conventionally attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Its French title is Du contrat social, first published in 1762.

Contrast

• Thomas Hobbes wrote Leviathan and defended a powerful sovereign as the remedy for conflict in the state of nature.

• John Locke wrote Two Treatises of Government and developed an account of natural rights and government by consent.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed the ideas of the general will and popular sovereignty in The Social Contract.

• More than one of the above would require at least two named philosophers to be independently credited with The Social Contract; the standard catalog attribution identifies one named author.

• None of the above would require the author to be absent from the named list, but Rousseau appears in it.

Cross-check

The attribution therefore identifies Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the answer.